


Don't Look Back

by erintoknow



Series: Aria-Rough Drafts [42]
Category: Fallen Hero Series - Malin Rydén, Fallen Hero: Rebirth (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, Gender Dysphoria, Inspired by Orpheus and Eurydice (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), Intimacy, Kissing, POV Female Character, POV Second Person, Processing Trauma, Recovery, Trans Character, Trans Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-13
Updated: 2019-06-13
Packaged: 2020-05-02 08:35:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19195375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/erintoknow/pseuds/erintoknow
Summary: Ariadne spills (some of) her heart to Julia





	Don't Look Back

**Author's Note:**

> This is the original version of [[Chapter 9 of Green Eyes]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21180341/chapters/50417060), I'm leaving this up for archival purposes and reference.

“I’m sorry.” You whisper into the room. It’s so dark in here, thank god. Shapes and colors reduced to the faintest suggestions. Shadows cast against the wall from somewhere else.

Her arms shift, pulling you closer against her. “You’ve nothing to be sorry for.” The words hit your chest like an ice dagger. Will you ever do something so evil as to match this? Laying in Julia’s arms, in Julia’s bed? “Hey,” she squeezes you, “hey, I thought we already cried ourselves out?”

You run your hand over her arm, up her shoulder, letting your fingertips pull at her skin. “I’m sorry we couldn’t…” go farther, you want to say, but don’t. Go all the way, you want to say, but won’t.

A hand rubs your cheek, “Oh, I think we made do just fine,” Julia’s voice is light and genuine, bringing a memory of hands on skin. You want to believe her, that this wasn’t a disappointment. “Next time I’ll be prepared. Now that I know what we’re working with,” her voice purrs and you feel a shiver run down your back. There _is_ going to be a next time, then. Maybe even a third, if you’re lucky. You’ve stepped over the event horizon; no one but yourself threw you out of this window.

“Alright then, I’d… I’d like that.” you whisper, “thank you.”

“Your welcome?” Comes Julia’s bemused reply.

What’s one more fall, at this point?

“I was so lost,” you say suddenly, surprising yourself, “without you, or Anathema, Sentinel, all the rest… even Steel, I guess.”

“‘Even Steel’?” Julia asks, mirroring your fingers tracing her back, with her tracing yours.

“Every family needs a stick-in-the-mud I guess.” Neither of you laugh. “You all made me feel like… like I was… like I was a real person?” You choke, teetering on the edge of truth. “Human?”

“Of course you’re human Ari,” Julia retorts, her ignorance another stab of pain to your heart. Then adds after a second, her voice soft again she says, “you were my best friend.”

You shift position so you can kiss her, it takes a trial run in the dark, tasting salt, before you find her lips. It doesn’t last long enough.

“You were all such… extraordinary, amazing people. You made me want to be special too. To… to do something more with this… power I had then petty theft or…” You don’t have the courage to finish that sentence, instead weaving your legs between Julia’s, a hug of knees. “And I wanted you to notice me. To… really see _me,_ like how I saw you.”

“Ari…” Julia laughs, but it has a bitter edge to it. “How did neither one of us say anything?”

“And then…” You pull yourself as close as you can, until your ear is pressing against her chest, until you can hear her heartbeat. “They took me away.” Your voice strains, it’s like the words themselves hurt your throat. “They took me away and no one ever came to get me. You never came.”

“Ari…” Julia’s voice is pained as she wraps her arms around your back.

“I thought you all had– had thrown me away. So I told myself I hated you too.”

You can feel the electric charge from Julia’s mods raising the hairs on the back of your neck. “If I had known, Ari, I swear–“

You cut her off. “So I did what I had to do. To survive. Just like before. Whatever it took. Whatever it cost.” You dig your nails into Julia’s back, one finger tracing a too-familiar pattern from memory. “Then one day, I… got lucky. I got out again. But… some years had passed and everything had changed. I– I had changed.”

“Just who are these people, Ariadne?”

You suck in your breath, feel the familiar static of Julia’s thoughts, forever unknown to you. Already you’re regretting your honesty. You’re just going to ruin your own revenge, or worse, get Julia killed. “I told you already Julia. You can’t save me. You can’t save the dead. This isn’t something you can just… punch and make better.” She doesn’t need to know about your own plan, not yet. Not tonight. “Ariadne died in that apartment, right alongside Anathema. Julia… I don’t know who I am now.” You laugh, feeling hollow, grateful it’s too dark for her to see your face . “A ghost, maybe?

Julia’s heartbeat is pounding in your ear, her arms pressing against you as if she can somehow squeeze the negative emotion out of you. “You’re not a ghost, Ari.”

“Yes, I am.” Your reply is sharp, immediate. “I’m not real, Julia.” You’re not crying again. You’ve already had enough tonight. It’s not happening again. It isn’t.

“You are.” Julia repeats forcefully, squeezing you a little for emphasis. “What… parts you were born with doesn’t matter. You _are_ a real woman, Ari.”

You sigh, frustration and fear mounting, how is it not obvious? “You don’t–“ you want to clarify but now your courage is failing you again. That’s what? The third time this night? It’s not like ‘cowardice’ wasn’t already on your list of sins. “…thank you.”

“Can you…” Julia’s speech is slow, deliberate, as if she’s terrified of what the answer will be, and that alone gets you attention. “ Can you ever forgive me? For not coming?”

You don’t respond at first, instead you trace your fingers up the back of Julia’s spine, feeling the scars, the outlines of metal, the years of work both man-made and natural that went into this woman beside you. “Do you have any idea how long I’ve wanted to do this?” You lean in, kiss her shoulder before moving up to her neck. “You pulled me out of that grave, Julia Ortega, my very own Orpheus.”

Maybe it’s not the answer she’s hoping for, but it’s the only answer you have.

 

* * *

 

In the dark, in the aftermath as you contemplate the safest way to get dressed again, a soft voice pokes through the machine-quiet, thrumming from the chest underneath you. You shift position, looking up at the shadow of her face. “Julia? Are you… singing?” You whisper. Julia doesn’t respond but you can feel her head nod on the bed. You let yourself close your eyes and listen for a moment, and then– “oh, no, no, stop. Stop, Julia, you’re terrible at this.”

Julia laughs and you find yourself laughing along with her. “Well then,” she shifts a hand free from under you, running it through your uncombed hair, straightening out the knots. “You going to show me how it’s done?”

You freeze for a moment, paralyzed with fear, a sinking dread of the void you know is coming to swallow you whole. Then Julia’s hand strokes your hair again, and at least for a second you feel anchored. Real again. “Okay,” you whisper, “just this once.”


End file.
